Diving in to the Wild Swim Map

A worldwide crowd-sourced swim map

The Challenge

The original and highly successful Wild Swim Map was ready to be upgraded to meet the changing needs and expectations of users.

To upgrade the Wild Swim Map Storm ID was tasked with the challenge of introducing new functions and features in order to provide accurate information on wild swim spots for the bravest of adventurers! Migrating existing data was also a requirement.

The new Wild Swim Map also needed to work responsively across a range of devices.

The Objectives

Improved User Experience

The map interface was redesigned to make it more visually appealing and intuitive to users. The swim spots are further enriched with appealing imagery.

Mobile Friendly

Considering the importance of mobile devices as first point of touch for Wild Swim's target audience, the new map was designed to be responsive and mobile friendly.

Focus on User Expectations

The new Wild Swim Map features a map based application which enables users to find swim spots close to their current location more easily.

The interactive map classifies wild swimming spots according to the type of water into filterable categories. Each spot also provides further information on swimming opportunities and conditions, such as long-distance swimming and suitability for family excursions.

Users are given the opportunity to add a description and high-resolution photography to their submissions to provide users with as much information as possible, e.g. details on how easy a spot is to access and any risks that swimmers should be aware of.

The Story

Wild swimming is about discovering new places to swim in a wild nature setting and sharing these spots with other enthusiastic swimmers.

Storm ID's relationship with the Outdoor Swimming Society and wild swimming goes back several years.

Jonathan Joyce, Storm ID's late Technical Director, was a passionate wild swimmer and an active member of the Outdoor Swimming Society (OSS).

Jonathan and the OSS recognised the opportunity to develop a crowd-sourced swim map service and within a few months the first Wild Swim Map was launched. Over the last few years, wild swimmers have added more than 2,700 swim spots to the map covering the entire length of the United Kingdom and across the globe from Greenland, through North Africa to Patagonia.

Jonathan's passion for wild swimming was all consuming and in 2013 he set his sights on swimming the English Channel. However, while training, Jonathan sadly drowned.